A Break From August Break

I took a break from “August Break” to head out camping in the mountains for a few days with the family.

The scenery on the way out to K-Country (in the Rocky Mountains) was spectacular!

Wow… And camping itself didn’t disappoint…

The view from my camp chair.

Cloud busting from the picnic table.

And a sheep by the side of the road.

There were deer meandering through the forest next to our site… a hummingbird mistook my reddish hat for something tasty… a couple of grey jays popped by for a visit… tons of squirrels, chipmunks, and ravens… and we nearly squished a vole with our car at one point. So much wildlife!

We had a chance to visit with awesome friends (Kim and her family), and fun friends-of-friends (Mile and her family, Tina and Erin and Christina and Reagan… who were so much fun, I forgot to pull out my camera to photograph them…), but we also went out on our own adventures, which was perfect!

Everything just tastes better outdoors. Even left over onion rings and chicken fingers roasted on the campfire, for the picky eaters… And (not seen here) perfectly toasted marshmallows. Yum…

I had found some fun flashlight-glow sticks that I brought for the kids… they were a huge hit!

And while we took time to draw, and play cards, and go for walks… skip stones, guess what the clouds looked like, and even find ice cream… we also allowed a little “down time” for the boys… and their electronics. =P

One of my favourite things we did was to go to an interpretive program at the amphitheater. Years ago, that was me up on stage, and as it so happened, the show we saw was about amphibians – the SAME topic my friend Kim and I had when we worked together way back then! Monkeyboy Jr. even got to be a volunteer for the show, and hurled a foam car at one of the characters – yay for passing the torch. And to top it all off, we ran into ANOTHER interpreter from that year (completely and wonderfully randomly), Clint, and his beautiful family. Talk about serendipity!!!

As much fun as it was, it was also *a lot* of work, and I am glad to be home and truly looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. Although, I am missing the nightly campfire. 😉 I’ll try to catch up with the prompts I missed tomorrow. Sweet dreams, y’all.